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Planning a Remote Hub for the Internet Governance Forum

I’ve taken part in the last threeInternet Governance Forum meetings in Egypt, Lithuania and Kenya, supporting e-Participation for the last year years. But this year I’m planning to be on the other end of the webcast, participating from a Remote Hub organised at the University of Southampton. Here’s the details:

Between 5th – 9th November 2012, the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) will be held in Baku, Azerbaijan, and students from the Web Science DTC at the University of Southampton are arranging a ‘Remote Hub’, allowing anyone from the University and the local community to join in IGF discussions live.

The Internet Governance Forum, which was set up out of the UN convened Tunis World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in 2005 is now in it’s 7th year, and provides an open forum where governments, companies and civil society come together to discuss key Internet issues – from cyber-security and critical internet infrastructure, to multilingualism on the web, diversity, access, culture and the impact of the web on climate change.

As well as being a forum about the Internet, a volunteer team have also worked hard to make sure IGF is a forum that takes place on the Internet. Each parellel stream from the conference is WebCast, and last year over 40 ‘Remote Hubs’ took place, with groups meeting up to following the WebCast, and feed back directly to the conference through live chat and video conferencing opportunities.

The Southampton Hub will be based on Building 32 on the Highfield Campus of Southampton University, joining afternoon sessions of the IGF on 6th, 7th and 8th November. We’ll be choosing sessions to follow, joining in local discussions around the issues raised, and feeding our views back to the event in Baku, and to other Remote Hubs around the world.